SPN Brothers
by Uozumi
Summary: The first time Dean flew, he almost died. SPOILERS


**Fandom** _Supernatural_  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s)** Dean, Gabriel, Dean's paternal grandparents; no pairing  
**Genre** Death/Family/Kid!fic/Pre-series  
**Rating** PG  
**Word Count** 855  
**Disclaimer** Supernatural c. Kripke, WB, CW  
**Summary** The first time Dean flew, he almost died.  
**Warning(s)** spoilers for the entire series, especially season five episode sixteen  
**Notes** I think my mind had to stew on the concept that the Winchester brothers have died and been brought back multiple times before my brain pulled something out of that theory to write about. I figured it's possible Dean knew his paternal grandparents since John made a comment in that one time travel episode about how they never see Mary's family, which I thought implied they interacted with John's family. Also exploring that scene in season five episode sixteen when Mary tells Dean he was a burden and how real the words might have been. Also wanted to play with Dean's fear of flying. This fic takes into account that the word Armageddon comes from har məgiddô (הר מגידו) in reference to Megiddo where two ancient battles took place before the common era.

_**Brothers**_

Guardian angels are not what humans think they are. Yes, they monitor human life and sometimes might provide ghostly comfort during the roughest nights, but they are not able to stop physics or bend the will of time and space. That was why when the plane plunged downwards; Gabriel could do nothing but observe the craft plunge into the lake. He watched the people aboard the plane scramble into action. It had been a rough landing but as long as the plane held, it was probable everyone would come out alive. However, the small child situated between his paternal grandparents could not breathe. He was panicking, he was hyperventilating and the little air mask across his mouth seemed to exacerbate the problem instead of ease it. His lips were turning blue and no matter what his grandparents tried or anyone else tried, the child soon passed out and separated from his body.

Gabriel knew what this child could become. He knew that it was not time for this child to die, so before the reaper could appear to the child, Gabriel intervened. He approached the small soul standing in the aisle of the plane as people bustled around exiting the plane out into the water of the lake for rescue. The soul was crying, confused and scared. His grandparents had left with his body not long before.

Gabriel laid a hand on the child's shoulder and they vanished from the wreckage, reappearing in a hospital room what was hours later. Time was fluid and irrelevant to the angel. He needed the child away from the sinking wreckage to return the soul to the body. The child looked upon his boy in the small hospital bed and then up at Gabriel. "Who are you?"

Gabriel needed the child's trust and his trust fast. This was the era of do not get in a strangers car commercials with Saturday morning cartoons after all. "The angel that watches over you," he utilized a phrase that the child's mother used every night she tucked him into bed.

Dean's eyes widened and he took in Gabriel from head to toe in wonder. "Can I go with you?"

"What?"

"To Heaven," Dean answered.

"Don't you want to stay here?" Gabriel asked. He had thought this was going to be easy. Confront the soul and get it to reenter the body. What four-year-old would want to go to Heaven?

Dean's gaze waivered to his grandparents and then back to Gabriel. "Mommy wants to," Dean tried to find the right phrase in his small lexicon, "trade me in."

"Like a car?" Gabriel observed the child.

Dean tried to physically pull himself inwards, his arms wrapping around his small torso and his knees turned inward as he nodded, looking to his Velcro shoes. "She and Daddy went to pick him up." He was flying out to stay with his grandparents for a week during the birth. He was not certain he would get to return permanently after that week. What if his parents liked the new son better than him?

Gabriel took a breath and then knelt down to Dean's level. He could not watch this child always, but he had watched enough to know the arguments this child had overheard when he should have been in bed and not outside his parents door about to knock after a nightmare. Carefully Gabriel reached out and put his hands on the child's shoulders. The tactile gesture calmed Dean visibly. "You know, I have two older brothers."

Dean eyed Gabriel, but he was listening. His arms slowly moved towards his sides. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Gabriel answered deciding not to point out how one was kind of duty bound and the other was in a kind of jail right now. "I'm really lucky." Well, to an extent. It was pretty fun until the Lucifer cast down to Hell bit and subsequent Armageddon that followed. It was not fun watching what having to kill Lucifer on more than one occasion did to Michael each time he accomplished it. Gabriel doubted the potential future battle prophesized would be any less hard to watch.

Dean considered this. "But…" he frowned, "what if I don't stay?"

"Did they tell you that?"

"No."

Gabriel studied Dean's face. "Then do you want to leave?"

Dean shook his head. When the light came, he grabbed onto it thinking that would solve everything. Now he was not so sure.

"Then take a deep breath and you'll return to where you should be," Gabriel instructed.

Dean hesitated. His eyes turned upwards to Gabriel, searching him. "Do you love your big brothers?"

Gabriel blinked. He had not anticipated the question. After a moment, he smiled slightly even though it looked like a smirk anyway. "Of course."

Satisfied with that answer, Dean's soul closed its eyes and took a deep breath. There was a flash of light and the soul retreated into the body it exited hours ago.

Gabriel watched as the small child's eyes fluttered open, looked to his grandmother first, and grandfather second. When Deans' grandmother embraced him lovingly, Gabriel left the family to a private reunion.

**The End**


End file.
